Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt:...Rebellion there was already being engendered a future trouble regarding the overissue of paper notes. (b) Creation of the taxation system.--When the Meiji Government acquired sovereign power, its right of collecting taxes was yet hardly established and its revenue consisted solely of the funds derived from the confiscation of the feudatory fiefs. Although the land tax at that time did not exceed that for only one-eighth of the total crop of rice obtained from the fiefs in the whole country, still the old method of tax collection was chiefly followed. This explains why the tax revenue in 1868 or 1869 amounted to only three or four million yen. Though in June, 1869, the Imperial sanction for the restoration of the clan census to the government was obtained, it was as yet impossible to effect a unification of the taxation system throughout the country. Each clan continued to pursue the old usages in tax collection and to pay one-tenth of its income of rice into the National Treasury. At last, in 1871, the abolition of clans and the establishment of prefectures rendered practicable the adoption of a uniform system of taxation throughout the country. A great reform in the land tax was now resolutely carried out, by which the former standard of taxation based on the amount of rice crop was altered to that based on the value of land, and the method of paying taxes in rice was abolished and replaced by that of paying them in money. An appraisal of land for taxation was made over the whole country, and the establishment of a rate of 3 per cent on the value of land produced an annual revenue of about 50,000,000 yen. In 1875 the sake taxes were reformed and classified into a tax for sake brewing, a license for sake brewing, and a tax on retail sales...